A seat in a vehicle, such as a car, bus, truck or lorry, or in a vessel, such as a boat, ferry or aircraft, may be provided with a safety belt in order to protect the user of the seat in case of a collision. In a common configuration of the safety belt, a latch portion is to be inserted into a buckle arrangement in order to lock the latch in the buckle, thereby buckling up the user of the seat.
According to known technology, the buckle arrangement is connected to the seat or to the body of the vehicle or vessel. The buckle arrangement is normally arranged beside the seat, if the seat is a single seat, e.g., a front seat of a vehicle. If the seat is a combined seat comprising seats for more than one person, e.g., a rear seat of a vehicle, the buckle arrangement often lies on top of the seat. In both cases, there is a risk that a piece of clothes of the user, e.g., a jacket, gets caught in the buckle arrangement. Further, if the user wants to place a bag on an adjacent seat, such as a handbag, a strap or belt of the bag may get entangled in the buckle arrangement of the user's seat or of the adjacent seat. If the seat is a rear seat, the buckle arrangement may make lateral displacement in the seat, e.g., in order to reach the central rear seat, more difficult.
Patent document US 2009/0094807 A1 discloses a rear seat with a buckle arrangement, in which the buckle is located in a recess of the seat, when an occupant is not seated, and is arranged to stand up from the seat, when the occupant is seated in the seat.
However, patent document US 2009/0094807 A1 only relates to rear seats. Further, although the risk of clothes or straps getting caught or entangled is less when the buckle is in the recess than when standing up, there is still such a risk.